Has anyone managed to put together the sound of a decent horn section from the standard Sonar package?  I found a couple of bits in Dimension but seemed a bit weak.  I don't mind using synths but want to get reasonably close to an analogue sound if possible.  If there's anything I could download I'd be interested, but I don't want to get my wallet out for this one.

Horns are particular hard to get close to the sound, if they dont sound good, the tune sounds like a cheap toy. I used DimPro a few times but if your doing melody lines with them they sound **** so cant help you.

JimYoYo gets good sounds from brass, but as far as Im award he uses Kontakt to do it.

Cian

I use loops as I can't get a realistic sound otherwise.  Sometimes I layer with MIDI synth sounds to beef things up.  Oddly enough my go-too loops collection is one that came free on a cover disk with Computer Music some years back.  It has enough individual notes, soft, medium, hard, etc. to enable me to do what I need.  If the OP PMs me I can arrange to let them have a copy.

If its a horn section then i would suggest you layer up 4  tracks or more... if you are using dimPro then tweak each track' synth slightly different.. this will give you the fatness you are looking for

Think how horns work in a jazz big band for example. The trombones are almost always doubling the trumpets an octave down. Keep your Eq nice and fat too. Don't thin out horns thinking they are going to cut through. Too thin and they will sound cheap and unreal. Real horns have a fair bit of low end present.

Voicings too are important. You might have a Basie voicing with the brass and an ensemble voicing in the 5 saxes. The ensemble voicing adds weight because the root and fifth are present.
The samples have to be pretty decent too. I have always done it with Kurzweil and EMU samplers. They seem to handle that job pretty easily. But I am sure any good library can do it too. If you doing a lot of brass it might be a good time to invest in a brass library especially for the task.

the horns in most of the synths are crap. They sound too midi for anything realistic.  

The better way is to look into the horn Specific packages that are available. The ones with articulation that mimics real players. Those are the better sounding ones, but they are not cheap. I can't recommend any specific one because I generally do not use horn in my music so it's not something I am very familiar with. 

Google search for horn and brass synths and you will find a number of packages.....some are instrument specific...such as SAX only or TRUMPET only.... others are full brass sections and are aimed at a specif genre..... so look around on the net. 

I use Band in a Box but.... the downside to band in a box is that you can not tell it what to play...as in a specific melody. this is an example of BB horns in a tune>>>  http://www.soundclick.com...134&songID=9012413  Articulation is pretty good but the melody is more of a jam...... it works great for fills and jamable stuff.... not so much if the horns need to play the melody. 

I use Band in a Box but.... the downside to band in a box is that you can not tell it what to play...as in a specific melody.

What you can do with BIAB is export to a MIDI file and load it up in Sonar and add whatever other tracks you want to it. 

I used Garitan personal orchestra through NI for an orchestral backing on an early version of a project i am working on. I think this is a pretty good package and cost about £120. Everything sounded quite good apart from the horns which were a bit rubbish. We ended up getting a guy to blow down this shiny brass thing and recorded it, much better, but maybe not an option for you.

Would be interested if anyone has had a any success in this.

There a pretty fat Brass Section on the TTS-1.

my go-to set is Supersection, regrettably no longer marketed.

Nothing like it seems to exist anymore.

Be that as it may; the secret for realism lies in the arrangements. See Jeff's post.